As you do of course.:laugh:

JK Rowling's been an interesting one. And a far more palatable figurehead for 'contentious' trans views than smelly Graham Linehan. What's intriguing about Rowling is that she's traditionally been a figure of veneration for those who are at the beating heart of this debate, so it's almost like the village chieftess is being ousted, a bit. I try not to follow social media, but it's very telling how vicious some of these folk are being towards what I still suspect is a traditionally well reasoned, intelligent woman. It's been a rather ugly reflection. That's not me aligning myself with her views, either. All I have on this is my heart, and my heart loves and accepts anyone at any stage of that journey for who they are and who they would like to be. The problem is that from what I can take from it she's raising difficult questions, and they seem to be a genuine no-go area for some people.

They will inevitably assume the position of harmful rhetoric for some, where others will applaud her courage in doing so. I've not seen any tweets of hers that I myself would take to be destructive sloganeering etc and am basing most of my character assessment of her on her blog post she made awhile back addressing all of this. But again as respectful as I found that piece of writing, I'll say again that I'll relent at aligning myself with her views. I will freely admit to not having the nous or practice to weigh on in trans issues save for what I've said above based on my gut, my heart. I've just found her a fascinating exhibit in online extremities.

That's a really long way of saying I still find her measurably more palatable than the digital army of "bitch plz, you're over" morons who brandished the pitchforks for her.

I agree with this, it's an unhealthy mindset to have imo.

Her major mistake was engaging with it honestly. She responded, it gathered pace, she responded again... etc... at some point she started defensively retweeting things that were in support of her, but were coming from questionable sources if you did a little digging, when ideally she should have stuck to the better thought out dialogue and ignored the sniping (at least in public).

It's the only way to do Twitter really. It's a toxic mess of hive-mind idiots and if you don't ignore them, you'll get drawn into a back-and-forth that's a waste of everyone's time. "They'll drag you down to their level, and beat you with experience" as the saying goes.

Well this is the thing, the idea that JK Rowling was always some sort of intolerant monster and was just waiting all these years to reveal herself (and lose a lot of fans in the process) just doesn't make a lot of sense. All she has done is speak about genuine concerns she has around the topic but it seems like you are just not allowed to ask any questions at all or raise any concerns or else you're a TERF and are banished from the left forever.

He didn’t just wear them as disguises. He wore women’s clothing for pleasure in private that he stole off family members and also wore it to ‘imitate’ a female pop star in public, and the reason given for it was that he wanted to live out a fantasy

I mean she hasn’t had these views for a while has she, like I think she said she was researching trans people for a book in a pretty recent timeframe? Anyway she’s always been kinda problematic and has made quite a few enemies in the lgbtq community with her clumsy attempts at representation and her comments about Hermiones race.

The thing that really bothers me here is that this is a pretty much textbook definition of intolerance, and frankly I have no idea how people have come to the belief that they can campaign for (let alone achieve) progress for ... well ... anything at all with outrage and inflexibility. "You got this WRONG so BYE BYE NOW" is only ever going to be counterproductive when it comes to mainstream thinking, so all you end up with is increasingly insular communities, full of confirmation bias, preaching-to-the-choir, and resentment.

This is the real "culture" problem we're facing right now, and it applies to countless groups from all across the spectrum. I see a tonne of practical similarities between LGBTQ, BLM, MAGA and Trumpites, Tommy Robbo and his ilk, and at the extreme end of the scale, extremist groups across the political spectrum.

https://media.giphy.com/media/X8sWg5Ka6m4qQ/giphy.gif

Yeah, I agree with this. There's no problem using the platform to put your balls on the table, but there's no need to get under the table to do a back and forth with various people.

I mean, she's a millionaire. If I won a grand on a scratch card I wouldn't be on the internet all day. I'd be drinking in traffic.

Yeah, and therein lies another problem. I don't want these knee jerks getting sole patent on the left. Yet their snappy, wholly ironic intolerance just enables genuine nazi scum and gifts them a rotten platform to try and sell back to the politically disenfranchised.

I'm all for punching a nazi in the face. I just don't see the hate in Rowling, though. Yeah, sorry, that doesn't work for me. I don't think it'll work for a lot of other people either once they grow up a bit. Then they can be better equipped to respond to her views with nous if they find them troubling, rather than begetting irrational hate in the face of - well - not hate.

She was clearly building his back story and his weird relationship with women and how it began. He wasn't trans, he was a crazy serial killer who wanted to kill women. This is a crime novel, it isn't a new idea

Why is it "problematic" for her to try and please the LGBT community?, surely that's a good thing, even if it was with clumsy attempts. And doesn't her clumsy attempts kind of show that she is in fact a genuinely nice woman who doesn't really want to upset or hurt people and therefore maybe, just maybe the only reason she is going against the party line this time could be because she is genuinely concerned about women's rights and issues between the two that may clash or be incompatible with each other? I mean do you really truly believe that she's just an evil woman who hates trans people for the sake of it?

Anyway at least tattoo artists are getting to send their kids to college off the back of endless hilarious cover up jobs of rubbish Deathly Hallows neck stamps.

:laugh:

Because she "didn't do it right" and thus it's seen as offensive, mercenary "virtue signalling" - which is, of course, language borrowed directly from people who would traditionally be anti LGBTQ.

I mean, I don't even disagree that her attempts have at times been woefully misjudged and ham-fisted but the idea that it's constructive to stick the boot into people who aren't trying to be offensive is just maddening. By all means, explain to them why it might be misjudged... if you do that accepting that they were trying, the vast majority of people are going to be receptive, at the very least to the conversation.

Well yeah, if a person is trying to be on your side, why not help them do it properly?

The Hermione backlash was utterly absurd. All she was trying to illustrate was that Hermione did not NEED to be white. She could have been black from the start and it would not change her character or the story in the slightest. So, therefore limiting the actresses considered to play her on stage just because Emma Watson is white is ludicrous. The stage play takes many liberties with the source material but it's a stage adaptation, it's neither the novels nor the films.

But that's probably another instance where no response at all would have been better because the backlash was nonsensical.

She aligned herself with transphobes and then doubled down when she got called out on it. The company you keep can be telling and she chose to align herself with a bunch of dubious people.

She's a bit of a moron that couldn't cope with criticism and so she decided to make it worse by doing the exact opposite of what she should have done.

As a side note the book is actually very good, hadn't read any of her stuff before

As for Virtue signalling, it is a thing but the wrong people often try to claim it. A straight person can't claim virtue signalling towards gay people for example, and Dumbledore being gay was an example of Virtue signalling since it hasn't to date actually been mentioned or come to light in any official works. If it actually played a part or was spotlighted than it would be different but it's not. Grindelwald was his friend in the books and in the Fantastic Beasts films and the only thing that states otherwise isn't present in either works.

As for the Hermione thing, it's often said that the stage is colourblind and while her attempts to make out that Hermione was potentially always black in the books was misguided as it's easy enough to see that's not the case, it's one instance that JK almost had the right of it. Hermione can be played by any race because her race isn't a defining part of her character.

Don't think that's fair, she responded because she was called a transphobe in the first instance. That's not "criticism".

It wasn't misguided, it was simply misconstrued. Hermione could have been black the whole time and, as you say, not make an iota of difference.

I'd say that's fair criticism, if you do something that can be perceived as transphobic, be prepared to be called out on it. She could have poured water on that fire easily but she chose to pour gas on it instead by retweeting people and sources that anyone could have seen would be a bad idea.

What? you mean that tweet about women being called women when it comes to sanitary products, you mean you think that was transphobic or am i misunderstanding you?

You said "a moron who couldn't cope with criticism" well being called a transphobe isn't on the level of fair criticism, it's an accusation she had full right to respond to.

Not being able to handle criticism would be her kicking off about someone disliking her work. Defending herself against accusations is not that. She shouldn't have to stop sharing her views or just get on with it because a group of people tell her she's a transphobe just because they don't want to acknowledge the finer details and points beyond a slogan or catchphrase.

Would you say people who took offence were "morons who couldn't cope with criticism" when they responded to her? It works both ways.

ETA: She also posted a full thought out essay that was categorically not transphobic. Not just retweets.

Point out to me where I said she didn't have a full right to respond? I'll wait.

She's a moron for how she chose to respond, I'm not denying her right to respond. Trying to misconstrue what I'm saying to make out that she doesn't have a right to respond won't really work.

At this point, there's enough incidents of her either supporting transphobes or spouting something akin to it that it's fair for people to call her out on it.

At this point, personally, I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt and think she's just an idiot that keeps putting her foot in her mouth by not checking the sources or people she retweets or supports.